Vipassana Meditation: How 10-Days of Fatigue Cleared My Mind

An endless flow of hours carried me through dry grasslands and flat topography. Finally, I arrived at the edge of Yosemite National Park. The destination was Nowhere-ville, California where the California Vipassana Center was located.

I had arrived. I parked in the dirt lot, turned in my keys, electronics, and valuables, and embarked on the hardest ten days of my entire life so far. If only I had known what I was getting myself into.

This “retreat” was a 10-day Vipassana Meditation clinic in which I was forbidden to talk, use electronics, read, exercise, eat meat, write, or make contact with any of the individuals around me. I roomed with 13 other women in a one-story extended trailer of sorts.We shared two showers (in which there was no hot water for the first nine days), three sinks, and a plastic front door. Our rooms were separated by cloth sheets that wrapped around the platforms we put our sleeping bags onto making my “room” for the 10 days –about fifty square feet—far from roomy.

My stomach was sounding the war chant. “Hunger!” It said, “Hunger has arrived!”

At 4 AM each morning, the wake-up gong bellowed. Vipassana meditation is the purest form taught by Buddha, and involves only focus on the breath and awareness of sensation; no visualization, no beads, no praying, no mantras allowed. With such a simple process, I had thousands of minutes to devote to calculating how close I was to the end. The number of gongs was also calculated. One down, I whispered to myself, one fewer gong.

In response to its chime, I clutched my lantern and rushed outside into the bitter air. A single white rope-light slithered along the dirt path, encouraging me to follow his dim sequinned scales to the meditation hall. The stars hardly shone any brighter. Their small amount of glow portrayed their frustration with me. I seemed to be interrupting their slumber.

Vipassana Meditation: How 10-Days of Fatigue Cleared My Mind.

My reward for reaching the hall was a single garden mat in a stuffy, dark room, where I sat completely still for two straight hours. Walking home after each sitting, my legs ached and my lower back groaned from fatigue. How could sitting still hurt so much?

The next pain came during meals. Our dietary regimen consisted of two small,vegetarian courses a day. No food was allowed to be taken after noon except for one or two pieces of fruit at 5 PM for new students. As a result, on day five I entered the 4 AM two-hour sitting with writhing stomach pains. My stomach was sounding the war chant. “Hunger!” It said, “Hunger has arrived!” I found my mind completely fixed for the entire duration, though, and when the finished bell rang, the stomach ache, back pains, and sore knees were no more. In their place, I felt refreshment!

Vipassana Meditation: How 10-Days of Fatigue Cleared My Mind photo by Unsplash.